Monday, February 4, 2008

Today as a disappointing conclusion to the battle for justice between the Students Action Committee (Lahore) representatives and the Punjab College establishment, a negotiation was held at the Muslim Town police station.

Mediated by SP Mansoor Haq, the two sides had a face off with five on each panel. The victims were represented by Azhar Siddique, Punjab Bar Council Media Advisor; Firdous Butt, Vice President High court Bar; Advocate Irshad, VP Lahore Bar; Saeeda Diep and Usman Gill, the latter two involved with the earlier altercations.

Punjab College had on their panel: Principal Agha Tahir, Vice President Naveed, Prof. Jameel, Prof. Farooq (Advocate), and Prof. Rasheed. According to the SAC representatives who had been assaulted earlier, all five of the Punjab College personnel present in the panel had been present at the time of the beating and some had been physically involved in the assault itself.

Without pushing for the filing of an FIR on the behalf of the teachers and students calculatedly beaten up, the SP focused for a low key, almost negligible result of a verbal apology.

For the SAC, settling for such a trifling recourse is not a matter of few resources but the futility of pursuing the matter in courts where justice is hard to find, where justices are behind bars with the support of the present judicial system.

When District Nazims and caretaker cabinet Ministers have the might to unleash brute directives, the authenticity of the current regime and its components is obviously brought into question.

The question is, if the current judicial system was impartial or non partisan, would SAC representatives, only armed with words, have to walk away with mere apologies instead of just legal recourse?